Electrical ground assemblies are numerous in technology-oriented products that rely on electrical and/or electronic components, including vehicles. In automotive applications, electrical ground assemblies are often installed in sheet metal at various locations within the vehicle. Often, fairly expensive and sensitive arc welding processes are employed to fabricate these electrical grounds.
More recently, large-scale production vehicles are evolving to incorporate more aluminum alloy components. Aluminum alloys offer corrosion resistance and weight savings compared to the steels employed in earlier generation vehicles, particularly for sheet metal components. The approaches used to prepare electrical grounds for these aluminum-based vehicles cannot be based on those developed in the past for vehicles employing steel and/or other ferrous-based metal components. The different metallurgy associated with the aluminum-based vehicles, for example, requires the development of new joining approaches.
Accordingly, there is a need for low cost joining approaches for aluminum-based components, particularly vehicles employing electrical ground assemblies installed in aluminum alloy sheet metal.